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Visiting Iceland – Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I talked about our first day in Iceland and how we got to plan our trip. On the second part, I want to tell you about our experiences during day two of our trip.

We had a great breakfast at our hotel in Reykjavík then we began our journey to the northwest side of Iceland, we drove through the Snæfellsnes Peninsula following road 54 all the way to Stykkishólmur where we spent the night.

Day 2 – Snæfellsnes Peninsula and Mt Kirkjufell

While driving through the Snæfellsnes Peninsula the sun started to come out, the morning colors were stunning so we decided to make a stop to take some photos of the mountains being warmed by the sunlight.

As you can see there were not a lot of houses in this area or too much traffic. The road was a bit icy due to the snow being blown away by the strong winds so we had to drive slow and very carefully. On the way we spotted a few horses next to the side of the road, so we decided to make another stop as we really wanted to see the famous beautiful Icelandic Horses.

After enjoying the company of these beautiful animals, we continued our journey. The sky was clear and the morning sun was giving a golden glow to the mountains.

Búðakirkja

Our first official stop on our itinerary for the day was Búðakirkja, we wanted to visit the Black Church of Búðir which is a tiny wooden church dating back to the 19th century. With the snowy mountains in the background, the white floor due to the snow and the blue sky, this black church is a photographic gem, imagine this with the northern lights!⠀

Gatklettur

Our second stop was in Gatklettur, a beautiful Arch Rock in the area of Arnarstapi, it was cold and windy but the view was spectacular.

We had several more stops on the map that we wanted to make but it was getting late, due to the strong winds and the icy roads driving took longer than estimated, so after Gatklettur we decided to go directly to Kirkjufell to try to get there before sunset. Fortunately, we made it on time, there were a lot of people as this is a very popular spot. We parked in the Kirkjufellsfoss parking lot and headed to the other side of the waterfall to get a composition that included the falls and the mountain.

The sunset colors were beautiful, it was partially cloudy as there was a storm coming that night. We couldn’t stay longer because we still needed to drive 40 min more to our hotel in Stykkishólmur.

If you don’t want to have to drive more, there is a small town next to Mt Kirkjufell where you can stay, if we knew the driving conditions were going to be like they were we would have stayed there instead to be able to spend more time in Kirjufell and reduce the driving time.

Despite the short time there I was able to get some more shots I enjoyed.

This was one of my favorite spots, I wish I had more time there to explore other angles, also to be able to visit at night to try to catch the mountain with the northern lights, but I don’t lose hope and think I’ll go back one day.

If you have time explore the area, try different angles, across the road there is another parking lot and there are trails around the mountain, there are usually horses there too, so the photo opportunities are endless here.

After Kirkjufell we headed to our hotel, we stayed in Hotel Fransiskus in Stykkishólmur, it is a small cozy hotel with breakfast and parking included, it had everything we needed.

Unfortunately, by the time we reached Stykkishólmur it was late and the next day we left early so we didn’t have time to explore this town.

Day 2 Map

As I mentioned above, we added a lot of stops on this day, we could not visit them all but they are still here on the map, hopefully, this will give you an idea of all these other things you can visit in this are if you have the chance.

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Visiting Iceland – Part 1

I visited Iceland for 8 days last year and I would like to share some of my experiences with you, some information that might be helpful in case you plan to visit and some of my favorites photos I took during this trip.

I going to write several posts since it is a lot of information to put into just one, I hope you enjoy them, so here we go!

Before Arriving

Inspiration

We all know that lately, Iceland has become very popular thanks to social media and I can honestly say I am not the exception. I follow a lot of photographers who inspire me with their shots and techniques, lots of whom have shared lots of great shots of Iceland which of course had made me want to visit this gorgeous country.

Every time I saw one of these amazing photos I showed it to my husband which made his interest in visiting Iceland grow as much as mine. After several years of wanting to visit this beautiful country, in 2016 we decided that 2017 would be the year we will go and then we started planning.

Planning

One of my biggest influencers was Iurie Belegurschi who is a recognized landscape photographer from Iceland and also co-founder of Guide to Iceland, because of his influence and his photos we decided to use his company to book our trip.

We wanted to have some help with the itinerary but we didn’t want to go in a guided tour so we could have more freedom and be able to adjust our plans if we wanted to, so we booked the 7 Day Northern Lights Self Drive Tour that included the car and all the hotel bookings plus extra tours that we wanted to do but with the freedom of driving ourselves.

From Guide to Iceland we got our itinerary for each day which included suggestions for places to visit, suggested the amount of time to spend on each place, the coordinates, and some other useful tips. Each booking had their contact information, address, phone number and email in case we needed to contact the hotel or service provider directly.

Moving Around

Since we were driving ourselves we made sure we had all the information needed before driving in Iceland during the winter. Thankfully Guide to Iceland provides lots of information, a couple of helpful blog posts are:

In addition to this, to help us understand our itinerary better and have a visual version of the trip for a given day I created Maps with the routes and possible stops using Google My Maps. These maps were incredibly helpful because you can add images to each stop which helped me associate a place with a name as these names sometimes were really hard to remember. I will be sharing the maps I created in case they might be useful to you.

Like many people these days, I rely on my smartphone a lot to access information, but sometimes you don’t have coverage and you cannot access your data when you really need it, so one recommendation is to make sure to write down the coordinates of all the places you want to visit during a day, either in a notepad or in a note file in your phone that you can access offline. Also, make sure to rent a GPS for your car as this is almost always reliable.

Day 1 – Arriving and Reykjavik

We booked our tickets through Icelandair, we arrived in Keflavik International Airport at 6:15 am where the car rental people were waiting for us to take us to get our car, it was still dark and it was snowing a little bit.

The car rental company that we got the car from was SScarrental, they provided a good service, transportation from and to the airport and the car was in good condition, we had no issues.

Blue Lagoon

The first stop in our itinerary was at the Blue Lagoon, we booked the standard entrance ticket and rented towels and robes when we arrived, they also rent flip flops and have drinks and food.

After a long flight, having a swim in these thermal waters is very relaxing, also there are some trails outside the building where you can walk around and take pictures of the lagoon.

Reykjavik

From the Blue Lagoon, we went directly to Reykjavik to get some lunch and then check in, we parked at a public parking near the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre where we were able to pay with a credit card, we never needed cash anywhere.

For lunch we found this nice small restaurant called Verbúð 11 – Lobster & Stuff where the food was simply amazing, we didn’t have a reservation but were lucky to get a table fairly quickly, totally recommended.

After lunch, we went to the hotel to check in and take a nap. We stayed at Fosshótel Rauðará, it is a nice hotel in the middle of Reykjavik, only 150 m from Laugavegur shopping street, 50 m from Klambratún city park and around 1 km from Hallgrímskirkja Church.

After checking in and taking a short nap we went to see Hallgrímskirkja Church which is the largest church in Iceland and it is visible throughout the city. It was designed by Guðjón Samúelsson in 1937 who got his inspiration by the shapes and forms created when lava cools into basalt rock.⠀

There was a lot of tourists but I still managed to take a shot of this amazing building without people in it.

Right in front of the Hallgrímskirkja Church, there is the Skólavörðustígur street where you can find a lot of shops and restaurants. In this street, we found a restaurant which name I can’t pronounce but where the food was to die for, we ventured in hoping to get a table and luckily we did even though it was pretty crowded, sometimes that is the advantage of just being two. The restaurant’s name is Sjávargrillið, I totally recommend this place but to be on the safe side I suggest getting a reservation as it gets pretty busy. It was so good that we went back on our last night in Reykjavik and ordered the exact same dishes.

The next day we left Reykjavik to drive up to the west to visit Buðir and Kirkjufell, I’ll talk more about these places in Part 2 of this series.

Day 1 Map

This map lists some of the main points of interest in Reykjavik, we didn’t get the chance to visit them all but here they are as a reference.

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